1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cartridge for a hubless optical disk and more particularly to an adapter cartridge and caddy which can be mated to provide a cartridge which enables a hubless optical disk to be written and read in a standard optical drive.
2. Description of the Related Art
Optical disks are frequently employed for data storage libraries because of the high amount of data which can be stored per disk area. The disks are stored in bins and are transported in cartridges between the bins and an optical disk drive by a picker which is mounted for vertical and horizontal movements. Some optical disks can be written only once while others can be written many times like a magnetic disk. Either type of cartridge can be employed in an optical disk storage library.
The typical optical disk employed in a storage library is double sided and has a hub at its center. The standard cartridge requires that the disk have the central hub. A typical optical disk drive has a spindle which engages the hub and rotates the disk for reading or reading and writing by an optical element. The hub is an expensive component of the optical disk. It would be desirable if the hub could be eliminated for standard optical disk drives in order to reduce the overall cost of an optical disk library.
Another cost factor of an optical disk storage library is the requirement that each optical disk be provided with a cartridge. In the past it has been accepted that a cartridge is required to handle an optical disk for transport between storage bins and a disk drive. While the cartridge is necessary to interface the optical disk with drive components there is a strong felt need to transport optical disks between the drive and the storage bins without the expense providing a cartridge for each optical disk.